How BAD Was The Trainer AI In Pokemon?

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Gen 1 AI Writeups
gamefaqs.gamespot.com/gameboy...
wiki.pokemonspeedruns.com/inde...
Gen 2 AI Writeups
pastebin.com/EjAW76cx
Gen 3 AI Writeups
*This info is from the Emerald Kaizo romhack, but aside from changing some moves and adding others, the AI works as it does in the vanilla game for Gen 3.
docs.google.com/document/d/1C...
docs.google.com/document/d/1_...
docs.google.com/document/d/1Y...
docs.google.com/document/d/13...

[@Abyssoft]

These videos where I break down the AI in video games are quite fun, if there's a game you want me to cover let me know!

[@Maxpower3586]

FF7

[@ronni315]

F.E.A.R.

[@ryanharris8709]

I'd like to see a deeper dive into pokemon. Maybe a full hour going over these AI or another video going over later AI even if they don't cheat.

[@jeffwhite1334]

Gen 4-9 or maybe just battle stadium or whatever it’s called

[@zdelrod829]

​@@jeffwhite1334Battle Revolution for the Wii?

[@realkingofantarctica]

Never forget how Twitch beat Pokémon with an underleveled Venomoth, all because Lance's Dragonite kept spamming Reflect as it was a Psychic-type move and therefore _had_ to be super-effective.

[@Juanus14]

very "AI" like, am i right?

[@onomatopoeiaii9729]

PRAISE AATTVV

[@aminadabbrulle8252]

It was Barrier, not Reflect.

[@Whurlpuul]

ATV the legend

[@DrawciaGleam02]

@@aminadabbrulle8252 As another Poketuber called it, "Dragonite breaking the sound barrier". 😆

[@chadmckean9026]

"at least the AI does not cheat like in mario kart 64" well Gen 1 AI knows your switch before it selects a move, if the AI has 'good' AI enabled it will know what you are switching to and use a move accordingly

[@LavaCreeperPeople]

cool

[@PaddySus2]

Also Gen 1 AI chooses a move after you chose your action, which means it can predict changing your pokemon to hit it with a super effective move.

[@enoyna1001]

Wtf

[@rtyuik7]

dont forget 'retroactive Potions'...

[@KeroTheInvincible]

Best seen with Brock and his Full Heals. If your pokemon is faster and inflicts a status condition on his pokemon, even with a secondary effect like Twinneedle or Ember, Brock will use a Full Heal on it that exact same turn.

[@TheSalamanderMenace4]

I think the ai works similarly in colosseum and xd

[@matthewsusilo8698]

As a challenge runner once said about gen 1 ai, 'You're a dirty cheater cheater pumpkin eater'

[@hatsuneelissu5924]

Anyone who played the older pokemon games still remembers the nightmare of *Sabrina's Alakazam Recover move spam!*

[@exequielbreton4393]

Or Erika spaming wrap

[@GamerDadJer]

I got softlocked in the Sabrina gym battle. My last pokemon was Kadabra, and I could not outdamage it's recover...

[@bettyunicorn6132]

I had to struggle my mew to death 😭

[@ladynikkie]

Yeah Sabrina was actually the toughest trainer Bobby original eight in Agatha was the toughest of the elite four that Gengar of hers gave me nightmares

[@tombstoner6360]

Hah, clever

[@Jlaps941]

Fun fact: in OG Diamond and Pearl, trainer AI supposedly was bugged and every single trainer, even big bosses like Cynthia and Cyrus, just acts like a wild Pokémon and picks random moves. I got to witness this when Cyrus’ Weavile kept trying to X-Scissor my Empoleon despite having brick break and on Staraptor despite having ice punch, and Cynthia’s Garchomp trying to dragon rush and giga impact my Lucario despite having earthquake.

[@llmkursk8254]

Makes me wonder what updates were given in Platinum and HGSS. The Rival *switched* Pokémon once when I was playing SoulSilver.

[@robertlupa8273]

_"How BAD was AI ACTUALLY? - History of AI in Casual Pokemon (Gens 1-3)"_

[@Firegolza645]

false swipe gaming

[@jonathantonner4263]

Its always surprising how much better the gen 2 ai is

[@Abyssoft]

When I did the research for this video I was very surprised at how they overhauled the entire architecture for the AI from gen 1 to gen 2, and then did it again for gen 3

[@musiikkimies9241]

@@Abyssoft Change of processing power from GB to GBC and then GBA, or Game Freak just getting their shit together?

[@devolov1]

​@@musiikkimies9241 it wouldn't be processor power that allowed these changes. These are simple calculations that wouldn't stress a CPU. Plus, Gold and Silver could be played on a Gameboy along with the GBC

[@IGSA101]

​@@devolov1 "Simple calculations that wouldn't stress the cpu." Remember this is gamefreak, they are historically terrible at space management. Even the more recent games have a ton of unnecessary files that could have been cleaned up to help the games run better. Or to fit more content into the games.

[@scoutbane1651]

@@IGSA101You're completely missing the point. If its space issues then it isn't the limitations of the CPU. CPU has very little to do with the size, at least in this situation (and tbh, most of them. It's not the bottleneck lol)

[@JosiahBradley]

"you might have exploited this AI in gen 1" Me as a child: look Pikachu hops over the ledges, this is peak game design. It's been almost 30 years T_T

[@Yipper64]

7:00 you gotta love those "oh frick how do we fix this? idk make a high chance for the problem not to happen" type solutions in videogames.

[@lumbajackthumbs7755]

Lmao I did that once. It was too difficult for the player to avoid starvation, so I made it so that you have 1/3 chance of dying when the game checks and you’re out of food. It would’ve been smarter to just add more food to the loot pool, but it was late and I was tired.

[@riotef2493]

It's like how Donkey Kong 64 requires the memory expansion pack to "fix" a memory leak

[@Unregistered.HyperCam.2]

@@riotef2493 This really was a strange case, where the bug wasn't actually fixed, but slapping an expansion pak in the N64 managed to mitigate the issue so much that it's hardly noticeable, compared to someone having gone through the code and actually fixing the issue.

[@ElisArid]

There is no memory leak, that is an old myth, and it's already been shown that IF the memory leak people believed would have been the cause for it really was, the game would have to run for upwards of 40 HOURS before the memory would've ran out. ​@@riotef2493

[@luqdude]

It's also worth mentioning not even the in game text gets the type chart right in gen 1. Using the example of using a poison type move against a grass/poison type, the game will actually tell you it's super effective, but the damage calculation formula does properly consider both types so it does neutral damage.

[@AndrioCelos]

What's really silly is that Pokémon GO had the same bug at launch.

[@Unregistered.HyperCam.2]

At first I thought you were going to mention type efficacy is bugged in Gen I(e.g. Psychic being resistant to the only Ghost-type move that doesn't have a fixed damage amount based on a Pokemon's level, rather than being weak), but what you've explained is something I wasn't even aware of. Kinda crazy learning stuff about games I've played to death over the past 25 years.

[@NightmareRex6]

i remember in silver i chose apprnetly the worst starter the bayleaf dinosour pokemon and was so used to seeing "its not very effective" one hit next "its not very effective" one hit dead, to point i thught it was atualy reversed and "super effective" was bad, also diddent realize importance of stat moves till gen 3 or 4. just both me and my mom (she only played gen 1 and part 2) "s s hi h tty moves"

[@Cyntaria]

Fun fact about gen 2: under very specific circumstances, you can still have a trainer lock into a non damaging super effective move. Go to the kimono girls and fight the one with Jolteon with a geodude with that hasn't lost any health. The jolteon will only ever use sand attack because the types AI will only discourage non damaging moves for its first check. It will look at all its damaging moves, see electric moves will not have any effect and will pick another move. When picking this other move, it does not specifically check for damaging moves and will include non damaging moves. It sees a ground type move that's super effective and will use it over tackle which is resisted. The other AI types that the kimono girls have will only affect the weighting of the moves if the geodude's health is below a certain level.

[@Abyssoft]

There are a ton of examples like this I wish I coulď have included, but I only have time for so many

[@Cyntaria]

@@Abyssoft I thought I'd add this as everyone just assumes the super effective status move issue was fixed in gen 2. I thought it was too until I encountered this and looked through the decompiled code on github myself 😅

[@ParasocialCatgirl]

3:30 - what if it was _intentionally_ set to turn 2? Think about it - healing moves are included in this list of 'setup moves'. Chances are someone noticed a Type 2 (setup) opponent using a seemingly utterly redundant healing move on turn 1, thought it was a bug, and tried fixing it by delaying the 'move that might be a healing move' to turn 2 (where a healing move would be less redundant) - not realizing the original intent behind it being initially set to turn 1 (whilst 'not classing healing moves as a setup move' would have fixed the bug without causing a questionable delay)

[@door-chan]

yeah categorizing healing moves differently than setup moves would have fixed this problem, use setup moves on turn 1 and then healing moves later

[@RedFoxtail26]

Also, setup moves are pretty useless when you'll OHKO anyway; best to attack first if attacking is an auto-win.

[@door-chan]

@@RedFoxtail26 that's really not an issue with the AI but with the game design. Even if the AI is bad the game would be at least a bit more challenging with changes to other elements. The opponents' pokemon are all weak and/or have bad moves compared to yours (partially because DVs, but also the pokemon themselves). A lot of trainers have pokemon that just suck in their level, in their stats, and they only have like 2 good moves in their learnset but gamefreak chose to give them really bad ones. Pokemon having ass learnsets was a general problem in RBY but you see it more in the pokemon opposing trainers have. If they actually had good pokemon even the poopy AI in the game could make it a bit more difficult, and even more so if the AI had been better programmed

[@RedFoxtail26]

@@door-chan I wasn't even phrasing that as an issue; I meant it more as another potential reason for the setup phase being turn two 😅

[@door-chan]

@@RedFoxtail26 if that was the reason why, then why would there be a setup turn at all? Every turn should be an attacking turn

[@dr4gonblitz]

Me wondering if my childhood self spamming tackle is any smarter than the AI in Gen 1

[@king_of_rats_Monfernep]

Only damage moves with higher power?

[@ninjaguyYT]

​@@king_of_rats_Monfernep me thinking I was in the top 1% of competitive trainers because of Substitute -> meanlook -> recover -> baton pass -> spore -> curse -> nightmare -> dream water.

[@king_of_rats_Monfernep]

@@ninjaguyYT -> string shot

[@kunabanana]

Them's a hell of a lot of words for "spam rest and protect 5 times in a row without failing"

[@ShyBoy6ty9]

20-something years later, I just realized why the JUGGLER switches mons and most other trainers don't. He juggles his mons.

[@ultimaterecoil1136]

My favorite case of bad ai in Pokémon actually comes from gen 4 and the best example of such is quagsire. The ai has a tendency to spam water moves into it from water mons even if they have already triggered water absorb once and I think this is because usually mons that have immunity abilities resist that type anyway but quagsire and also crogunk are cases where this isn’t the case making them very effective vs water types and allowing them a free setup opportunity a lot of the time. Just imagining the enemy trainer getting progressively more frustrated while quagsire has this dopey grin on its face just sitting there while it’s being hit by water attacks repeatedly only to eventually let out a earthquake boosted by several curses is quite funny

[@jeroen2689]

As a software developer the fact that this game was 1.05mb in size amazes me till this day.

[@IndigoTeddy]

They may have made hundreds of programming errors they couldn't patch until the sequels/re-releases (due to DLC not existing on their platforms at the time), but Nintendo/GameFreak definitely knows their way around their assemblers and compilers.

[@AdumbroDeus]

​@@IndigoTeddyas somebody who knows assembly... Programming even something as small as 1.05 mb in assembly is something I would not wish on my worst enemy.

[@Scout819]

Granted, I know in Gen 1 they actually had to cut a lot of content(It's actually pretty cool how many Gen 2 mons were meant to be Gen 1 mons, or how many future mons were inspired by cut Gen 1 mons), but I'm sure it was probably easier back then than it would be nowadays. Makes me wonder just how big the file would be if it was made from scratch today. Like, exactly the same, just made today instead of almost 30 years ago.

[@kalma5003]

What do you mean it would have been easier to code in assembly back then? I'm curious

[@Scout819]

It's a complete assumption lol. I just assume so since games were both a fraction of the size, and a fraction of the complexity compared to todays games

[@RetroAussieBloke]

Man, this is absolutely INSANE to see the level of (attempted) depth even in gen 1 and 2... As a kid, I'd always assumed there were only 3 forms of AI - A blanket Wild Mon AI, a blanket Trainer AI, and a blanket Gym Leader/E4 AI. So to see that it's not only different for each leader, but different for *each trainer type* is absurdly cool!

[@Delifte]

the jump between gen 1 and 2 is crazy

[@proxyg4884]

Not to mention gamefreak implemented breeding, shinies, radio overlay, bag management, held items. Gen 2 was the framework for modern day pokemon. 🐐

[@radaf4429]

Not really. For all of the bells and whistles that gen 2 added, I think the RPG elements in the game actually took a massive step back. It's nearly unplayable with its embarrassing lack of new good Pokémon and terrible pacing.

[@A_Hardy_Lopunny]

​@@radaf4429They spent so much time on other features, but the core game is really undercooked, i agree.

[@iang0th]

@@radaf4429 None of that is the "framework," though. The game was poorly balanced (they must have had a REALLY dumb group of play testers), but they did add a ton of new mechanics that became core parts of the series.

[@radaf4429]

@iang0th I'm willing to concede that. I would also point out though that a lot of the introduced mechanics were either not good enough to return or were really not great in their original capacity: -Pokegear calls are bothersome and do little to improve the game. -Pokémon happiness is cumbersome and a few moves and evolutions are not enough to justify its inclusion, especially where Umbreon and Espeon are concerned. -Held items and Berries were so underdeveloped that it really took until Gen 3 for them to really be a good inclusion. The only good held items were Leftovers, Thick Club on Marowak only, and maybe Mint Berry. I don't consider PSNCUREBERRY and PRZCUREBERRY to be even close to the system that would follow and supplant it. -Held item trade evolutions are diabolical. -Of the 6 each of Dark and Steel type Pokémon were included, only a handful were really that great, and the only moves at or above 80 BP were Crunch and Iron Tail, and most Pokémon couldn't learn them as stab. -Pokémon genders is a pretty sensible inclusion that was technically already in the game. Same thing with the creation of Special Attack and Special Defense. -The day/night cycle makes playing the game a less accessible. I don't want to have to wait until Friday to catch a Lapras, or, God forbid, get up in the morning to catch a Pokémon. -Breeding and shinies are genuinely good and more or less unchanged from their current state. Compare that with Gen 3, and you'll see that: -Double battles were introduced, with many moves interacting in interesting ways, especially when you factor in -Abilities, which added a whole new dimension of strategy to the game, and RSE supported it by giving unique ability-based strategies and drawbacks to Pokémon like Plusle and Minun, Slaking, not to mention moves like Skill Swap -A completely overhauled Berry system that gives them real names and appearances, which combine with -Pokémon contests, one of the best side modes in the series, which requires a considerable deal of preparation and strategy in its own right -A Battle Frontier which added real post game in for the first time. Not all facilities were winners, but most of them were -Diving and underwater exploration, which I find to be excellent And that's just a short list. I respect Gen 2 for kickstarting a lot of ideas that went on to be good things for the series, but in the form presented in the game, most of them weren't really anything special, especially compared to other gens.

[@andy4an]

ok, kinda shocked that in gen 3, they could switch mons out for bad matchups in my experience almost no NPCs bother trading out, no matter how useless the matchup is

[@kyklous3657]

The bad match up thing is mostly for switches after you KO their pokemon, though mid battle switches do happen in certain situations.

[@kyoai]

3:45 :I don't think them choosing the setup moves on turn 2 (aka internal number 1) is a bug : It wouldn't make much sense to use some of these moves on turn 1 (aka 0), such as recover or rest, as there is a chance that the AI, due to higher speed, would perform the move before the player had to the chance to damage the AI pokemon, which would be a waste and silly. I'd say them performing the setup/recover move on turn 2 is a rather easy trick to make it look like the AI is actually reacting to the player.

[@manelneedsaname1773]

I thought it was more of the game letting the player set up first so they get the advantage, like how in the first battle of every game the rival doesn't use the only status move it has at the beginning

[@MikeWK29]

I agree. Theres a good reason for it being turn 2, mainly for recovery. And programmers who make that mistake usually do it inconsistently and run into compile errors, never would happen over an entire project

[@christ8048]

Recover and rest aren't setup moves.

[@ElisArid]

​@@christ8048they are in the games programming if you listened to the video

[@gzer0x]

Never forget All-Terrain Vennomoth's miracle win from silly AI

[@wildgoosespeeder]

10 year anniversary!

[@Eternalwarpuppy]

I've played through gen 1 Pokemon dozens of times and I never knew there was a category 2 trainer that checks out hello fresh. I definitely remember trainers talking about their boyfriends and girlfriends, but I can't remember who talks about preparing food.

[@peepopopo7140]

Gen 2 twins are too busy bickering about what move to use, and that's why they fight as well as wild pokemon.

[@ivanbluecool]

Nothing wrong with using agility on poison types. It's type advantage

[@vaiyt]

Twitch plays pokémon

[@Jackpkmn]

@@vaiyt was 10 years ago.

[@_Rez_EZ]

​@@Jackpkmnso?

[@Zelinkokitsune]

@@vaiyt The All Terrain Venomoth. Drove over those dragons and brought us victory

[@CaioXG002]

You should add an "ACTUALLY?" at the end of the video's title for the cool False Swipe Gaming reference, hah.

[@enoyna1001]

Thought the same

[@TheTsukuyomiLight]

I love the AI in the third generation where every trainer from a four year old to a granny has multiple Super/Hyper potions or Full Restores and are just chomping at the bit to use them.

[@tabbender1232]

In firered the AI will sometimes use an electric move on a volt absorb mon or a fire move on a flash fire mon, i've had that happen

[@niaxeno]

This is because if you have two potential abilities the AI 50-50s between the 2 and then stores the information later until you switch, even if it's smart AI. Also for some reason there's a bug with intimidate where it will force the AI to forget you have the ability even if it has already stored the ability.

[@tabbender1232]

@@niaxeno I've had it happen on a Ninetales and a Jolteon both of which only have one ability though Also they would resist the hits anyway so attacking them with moves of these types made no sense

[@yppahdalg2397]

@@tabbender1232 Agreed. I assume they have no knowledge what ability the pokemon should have, which makes sense, it would be a lot of extra code for the trainer to check every pokemon and their ability. Plus, it also gives the player a sense of outsmarting their opponent, which makes the 'oversight' actually add to the experience. Though there still are plenty of unintentional oversights left in the games, like how Zoroark royally fucks with the AI. It will spam Psychic until the heat death of the universe against a Crogunk that's actually a Zoroark, even after it shows to have no effect, cause it never saw the ability text.

[@niaxeno]

@@tabbender1232 If we're talking about random trainer AI sometimes they just click random moves into immunity abilities as it tends to break them. The "highest" level AI will 50/50 and store the ability, but random trainers I don't think see your ability except for some classes, my mistake. Random trainers just kind of do whatever. An interesting quirk of Immunity Abilities is that abilities like Intimidate that activate mid battle on a mon with volt absorb will cause the AI to forget you have volt absorb even if it has already activated (this is particularly useful in the Emerald Kaizo Wattson fight against the Manectric). Also depending on the other moves they have access to it could legitimately be highest damage to use a resisted move into your mons without factoring in the immunity abilities because their other moves are just that bad

[@niaxeno]

@@yppahdalg2397It's less that the AI doesn't see imposter and more that it is always calcing highest damage / or finding an OHKO against the Pokémon that Zoroark is impostering, which is still abusable like you said but has little to do with the ability in that case.

[@thegameplayer125]

it's always interesting looking back at all of our beloved classics to see just how good/badly it's aged based on the limitations and experience or lack thereof with the hardware

[@banditrests]

Small correction, you don’t need to be able to OHKO Lorelei’s dewgong, rest takes 3 turns of sleep so you need to be able to 2-3 hit depending on if you’re faster and it’s pretty slow. Otherwise that soft lock would be a lot more common. It’s actually extremely exploitable, hit dewgong once, get it to rest, use set up moves, get extra benefit from the badge boost glitch, and sweep RB Lorelei for free.

[@dii3218]

- sends out a Poison-type to sweep Lance -

[@FlowMega100]

all the editing in this video is amazing, probably took a long timee

[@jayceearrboy]

One of my favorite parts of a video of this sort is excellent research and data sorting. Excellent work!

[@Abyssoft]

It did, videos where I have to animate graphics and data are always time consuming

[@espelhodasconstelacoes]

God bless bro, it totally paid off the effort! ​@@Abyssoft

[@FoolishnessDanteeee]

Dude said Lairing like it was an aerial in smash

[@blue_boo3171]

14:59 So, in earlier Gens the AI would remember that you had Protect and not use moves like Fly if it saw you use it? Meanwhile in my fight against Fantina in BDSP, I was able to set up to +6 on my Plant-cloak Wormadam using Quiver Dance + Protect while her Drifblim kept spamming Fly. Guess the power of quad-effectiveness was just too great.

[@aqwkingchampion13]

“Ok, ok, I get it, you know protect, but… if your protect fails just this once it’s over… just one failure…”

[@blue_boo3171]

@@aqwkingchampion13 Protect only has that chance of failure if you try to use that move (or similar ones like detect) multiple times in a row. Because I am alternating between protect and quiver dance, it won't have a chance at failure. People sometimes use protect strats against Norman's Slaking with the same pattern and effectiveness.

[@aqwkingchampion13]

​@@blue_boo3171 I know, I was more thinking the AI is in denial about the fail chance lol

[@christophera5818]

Great video. I love gen 1-3. But what about the battle frontier in Emerald? You should do a video on that. I know the AI can get pretty wacky. I would like to learn more about it though.

[@alecrutz6979]

"super fang is at the top of the hierarchy" based, one of of my fav moves in the generation

[@jraymond1988]

3:57 The electrician sprite (that looks like a singer from KISS) is on both level 1 and level 3.

[@Abyssoft]

In the data sheets he's in both categories, I assume that means there are instances of him with cat 1 AI and others where he has up to cat 3, this is an assumption on my part though.

[@wildgoosespeeder]

I did find one fault with Generation III AI. I don't think the AI takes into account if an ability has changed during battle. It may read that data like your party screen before battles as compared to live battle conditions. I battled Norman in Emerald with a Trace Gardevoir and a Spinda with Own Tempo. I spammed Double Team when Spinda kept trying to confuse me until I maxed out my evasion stat and floored his team! Also, AI fights where it is programmed to use Full Restore when the HP reaches a certain threshold, I use a light hit move first then a heavy hit move, preferably super effective. This is enough to skip the AI from attempting to heal!

[@AJMTV]

I explored all my old games recently and for Pokemon Blue, I was stuck in the Elite 4 after Lorelei, it took me an hour of trying to lose until I decided it’d just be quicker to beat the rest of the fights lmao 😂😂

[@Emerald-Fluffie]

“The AI now observes PP” Me too, AI, me too

[@neux64]

I vaguely remember the flaws of this Gen1 AI from 2 separate occasions: 1. I remember fighting Blue, his last Pokémon a Venusaur and mine a lvl ~11 Bellsprout (he obliterated my Blastoise). It was the most tense fight ever, as all his Venusaur had to do was use a single attack move to end the battle. However, it just ended up spamming Sleeppowder and Poisonpowder, which of course my Bellsprout was immune to both, and so after a good 20 minutes, I was able to defeat Blue by spamming Vine Whip and Cut. I remember my Bellsprout gaining tons of EXP from that fight, and I was both dumbfounded and ecstatic. 2. One I remember a lot less about is facing Champion Blue, his last Pokémon his Charizard, and mine a lvl ~28 Raichu (i was 7 okay? Ofc i only prioritized the starter pkmn). I don't remember it too well, but I did manage to win against it, it must've been because of Thunder and Paralysis, but it's too much of a blur to really know for sure, so I won't discount it for an AI flaw as well. I know the former fight coincides really well with this info, since Venusaur could have Vine Whip'd my Bellsprout into oblivion, but these are stories I've always bragged about to my Pokémon friends since then. But at least now I know how I was able to unknowingly outsmart the AI as a kid.

[@shewithwings]

its super interesting to hear about the ai in these games, def interested in more like this!!

[@ben_sisko2149]

The problem with the newer games is that they still have pokemon 10+ level lower than you. Scarlet and violet sort of solved that, but I would still love a hard mode.

[@iscremintothevoid]

This is so cool! I'd love to see you cover the other Pokemon games, but I honestly have no idea how similar they end up being further down the line.

[@RealNinjanate]

Did we ever figure out how modern AI works? Still hard to find resources in this subject so this was very helpful

[@vitormenezello]

Does that moveset logic for trainer pokemon also apply for other gens or did they change how that works? Is it the same for wild pokemon?

[@sagacious03]

Great analysis video! Thanks so much for uploading, & here's looking forward to more like this from you! Also, in your description, the 2nd Google Docs link for the Gen 3 writeups gives a "Page Not Found" error. Any info about that?

[@Abyssoft]

I'll look into it

[@sagacious03]

@@Abyssoft Thanks a ton!

[@Abyssoft]

@@sagacious03 I rechecked the links, they should work now.

[@sagacious03]

@@Abyssoft Thanks a ton once again!

[@rileydurfee4403]

Crazy different video but i loved it! Love to see the innovative video for your channel!

[@healthyminds9279]

Given how much effort went into designing the Ai , it's a shame the games aren't difficult enough to really notice most of the time. You can often sweep through battles etc

[@dgaf9843]

It was a game written for children that wasnt expeced to succeed, on hardward about as complex as a paperclip, before patches could be implemented. I just happy it doesn't burst into flames everytime i turn it on.

[@nathanieljones8043]

Speak for yourself red/blue could be broken on accident how do you think missing no was so well known

[@bellowingsilence]

I mean, the Gameboy is arguably a lower res, initially black and white, but technically more powerful NES. I dunno if we can credit the hardware for holding a rudimentary turn based RPG back too much.

[@EnigmaticGentleman]

@@bellowingsilence I mean NES RPGs also had really bad AI, on top of not being nearly as complicated as Pokemon (tech wise, not gameplay wise)

[@turnkey_hole]

​@@nathanieljones8043 you dont think that a game with all that compressed data and no memory protection only having a few little quirks in the edge cases isn't impressive?

[@everythingpony]

You can patch cartridges

[@Adrian-ze9ud]

Is there any place where I can see all the things you skipped? You got me really interested about it! 18:07 Are you absolutely sure that the AI, or at least the odds, doesn't cheat in the battle frontier?

[@keatonjohnson3057]

I remember Koga spamming sleep powder in gen 1 and I would keep using the Poke Flute. Finally, I got tired of the back and forth. The same turn I stopped using the Poke Flute, he stopped using sleep powder. So I’m pretty sure the A1 waited until the player chose their move.

[@niaxeno]

Yes, in gen 1, the AI moves after you. It can also "predict" your switches.

[@jamespayne8252]

Any day I see a new Abyssoft upload I know it's a good day, thank you for all your hard work Aby!!! I truly appreciate and enjoy your work. If you keep making them I'll keep watching 😁

[@tnuhenaj3752]

funnily enough the legendary dogs/beasts in generation 2 have the same quirk where they randomly select a move and their fleeing will have the same priority as that move. If they choose roar thats good because thats negative priority but at least 1 of them has quick attack so that sucks. can't trap them every time because of that. Then there's the fact that if you trap them they have roar so you need to sleep them first but that doesn't help if they flee with priority from quick attack. Genuinely some of the worst pokemon to try and catch in the series. Even encountering them is a pain as it doesn't work quite like in later gens and having to bring up the pokedex constantly to check their movements is so tedious. Generation 4 with its poketch marking map had the best roaming pokemon catching experience. So much easier.

[@edgargaebolg9307]

Iirc you could never find them again if they used Roar... or was it if you used it?

[@Scout819]

@@edgargaebolg9307 That was a bug in FireRed/LeafGreen. If the Entei or Raiku used Roar, they'd essentially be deleted from the game. I've heard claims that they'll respawn if you beat the Champion again, but idk if that's true or not, it sounded like they're gone from the game.

[@Skills4J00]

Who is the streamer at 3:50 wearing the OU shirt?

[@assault410]

Not sure i think its an off by 1 error. Its likely just so that the recovery set up moves are less likely to be wasted

[@CoralReaper707]

Gen 1 AI is definitely the most memorable for me as it was definitely the most hilariously bad AI

[@dovakiin296]

I remember in fire red there was a trainer with a chansey that would use minimize to increase evasion and then use softboiled to restore their huge ass health pool. You just couldn't beat it unless you could kill it in a single shot.

[@OrbitalPulsar]

You missed "ACTUALLY"

[@phtefanphtefan3873]

Great video as always, but the Hello Fresh reminds me on the GTA3 commercial Radio ads😂

[@kinghrath]

I stare into my fridge wondering what to make for dinner because there's no food.

[@NightmareRex6]

should of stocked up on food instead of toilet paper durring 2020. i been saying why ppl buying TP when no food to make dookdook with? like would see peaoples fridge, beer a LOT of beer, and toilet paper stocked in restroom, but no food, what good TP without food?

[@kinghrath]

@@NightmareRex6 you think I have enough money for toilet paper?

[@UnoriginalUsername25]

13:18 the AI will also switch out mid-battle if they cannot damage your Pokemon at all, like if it only has damaging normal and ground type moves against a Levitating Gengar, for example.

[@SpectroliteDS]

The fact Lorelei's softlocking BS was SO bad they added a clause SPECIFICALLY for her in Yellow that'd prevent it.

[@petelee2477]

6:49 if the move hits. It is theoretically possible escape.

[@yppahdalg2397]

Not unless you use an X-accuracy beforehand, this makes the game skip the accuracy check and the 1/256 glitch that is required for the move rage to miss, making the battle truely a softlock with no hope of escape.

[@TheSoulCaptor]

For Gen 1 in both Blue and Yellow there was a weird outcome when fighting Giovanni in his Gm Battle using a Parasect against his Nidoking and Nidoqueen as despite having Blizzard, Fire Blast and Thunder they will only use Tail Whip

[@Imirui]

2:01 The only trainer class that also fits into the wild pokemon category are the twin trainers, having near 0 actual selection AI

[@BananaGatorProds]

Ive always loved that the jugglers are specifically coded to juggle their team by swapping frequently. I wish they would give more personality to trainer classes like this.

[@KefkeWren]

Setup on Turn 2 _might_ actually be intentional, for three reasons. First, Turn 2 ensures that a trainer doesn't waste time setting up against a pokémon that they can one-shot. Secondly, because the "setup" category includes healing moves, it would be a waste to use these on the first turn if the pokémon has yet to take damage, so waiting until Turn 2 to prioritise them reduces the odds of that happening without much effort. Lastly, it could be used to simulate a trainer "feeling out" their opponent before deciding their strategy.

[@rphntw1n]

You switch up your thumbnail game? I was digging it.

[@Abyssoft]

We couldn't figure out any text to work with this one, so we just went with an image

[@damiencouturee6240]

Alright that transfer into the sponsor made me laugh, good job lol

[@fireswarmdragonp]

Holy cow, just think about how much effort programming all these behaviors got by even gen 3. It was reading past player inputs, that's crazy attention to detail

[@timdaferretmailman7297]

So wait, it prioritizes self-destruct and explosion if it's the trainer's last Pokemon? That doesn't make sense to me. Isn't the goal of a battle to win? So why use a move that would guarantee your defeat? To try to take the opponent down with you for a tie? For the most part, I'm very confused...

[@morthim]

for most of the video it wasn't clear if the priority was towards low values or high values. incidentally watchers, it is towards low values.

[@morthim]

nvm he either messed up in one area or another. either he messed up in milk drink on in the earlier area.

[@Abyssoft]

For gens 1 and 2 the lowest priority was selected (which I did say at the end of the gen 1 section) and gen 3 it selects the highest, which I also mentioned.

[@hlavco]

I was having trouble with a gym leader in Black until I realized that he would spam Bulk Up forever until you damaged him for the first time. So I counter-spammed Sand Attack and Tail Whip until I had a healthy advantage.

[@joaovitorchivite]

how did you get it to work? i tried a team of foxy just to mess around and what i got was 4 foxy behind Freddie's that wouldn't do anything

[@riftvallance2087]

Gen 1 ai always feels like its somewhere between selecting a moves at random to throwing the match on purpose.

[@rareroe305]

Duct tape and safety pins for Gen 1? That's an upgrade, I thought it was made with saliva and prayers.

[@DonaldGaron]

What a coincidence. Earlier today, I beat Pokémon Blue and I took advantage of Lance's bad AI lol. Great video btw

[@miguelvasquez9444]

Great video main Thank you!

[@mitchellradspinner4491]

Great video! Always fun to learn game idiosyncrasies.

[@QDude24]

How about when I have a poison type on the field, and I switch to a flying type yet they still don't go for earthquake on that 1 turn?

[@meta527II]

I remember once, when I was playing Pokemon Yellow, I spammed Thunder against Agatha, and then during one of the turns, she withdrew her Pokemon and then sent out Golbat, which is WEAK to electric-type moves! More of a reason why Agatha is a good candidate for my least favorite Elite Four member.

[@herby190]

Is there a reason we assume that with the category 2 trainers, it was an unintentional off-by-1 error? If the “setup moves” include healing moves, doesn’t it make sense to save that for the second turn?

[@combatwombat2134]

Question: what was the reason for giving the attacks on random Pokémon an almost identical but not chance of performing an attack? Like, why wasn't it x4 25% chances but ones that were slightly different?

[@Abyssoft]

You'd have to ask the developers why they did that, all we know is that they did it that way, but I agree, dividing 256 by 4 gives 64, and instead of doing that they opted to slightly alter the probability so some are weighted slightly higher.

[@combatwombat2134]

@@Abyssoft it's such an oddly low number of increased chance, too. Like, if it was so there was a weighted difference towards offensive rather than defensive moves I'd understand the reasoning. Anyway, excellent video, buddy. Found it really interesting. :) subbed.

[@spicybeantofu]

Im glad I started at yellow sounds like nightmares before that

[@CassandraY]

Same! And for the Mew glitch!

[@NightmareRex6]

they could also fixed the lorine softlock via making rest only have the 10 or 15 uses for the NPC as well but dont think npcs can drain their moves and use "Struggle" i thinkt hey can in gen 4 and above tho? not sure.

[@Lunar994]

Now I'm REALLY curious about Gen. 2's AI

[@lo0katmyn4me]

thanks for the video abyssoft z, very interesting!

[@whydoyougottahavthis]

It should be noted the paper clips and duct tape is pretty legit how programming was done back then you was limited AF for memory so even if you thought of a better way for it to work, you likely couldn't have made it work within the parameters so you was limited by both imagination and hardware, nowadays it's only imagination and they ain't made a better game imo but in a genwunner what would I know

[@therealmorganofficial]

Man I love Gen 1 and 2!

[@pragmapack]

Would love to see sources if you have them, I'm curious to learn more about this

[@Abyssoft]

Added them, check the bottom of the description

[@pragmapack]

@@Abyssoft awesome thanks!

[@lunondisposable5382]

I had no idea how intricate Gen 2's AI was, I knew it was better than 1 but that's not saying much. I always thought they had just fixed the glaring bugs and accounted for held items, crazy how much thought really went into it

[@astropgn]

I doubt the setup move happens on the second move for off-by-1 error. That would be too simplistic and assume that they never play tested the game during development. It looks, at least for me, by design.

[@NightmareRex6]

now that this info is out how the moves work when replaced with npcs and wild pokemon, wonder if anyone yt gonna do a "play like npcs" challange in pokemon, and have a random wheel that they use select the move everytime?

[@strikermodel]

I always thought the moves pokemon had were manually set for their areas. I didn't realize the game actually generated their moves each time based on their level in that stack order. This changes things a lot for me. I always thought the level up move list was weird in it's ordering. Now I know that it was probably a concious decision for that algorithm. Now the phone system in gen 2 makes a lot more sense. Since the trainers you get the numbers from can get stronger over time, you do in fact get to see that system in action!

[@strawberrylemonadelioness]

I didn't actually realize how complex the AI was, I guess O just assumed it was always randomized

[@niaxeno]

The Switch In AI for gen 3 is somewhat correct but incomplete. The AI doesn't look for Pokemon with super effective types initially, it looks for Pokemon with a SE MOVE. This is actually very relevant because the AI may send in a Pokemon that loses to you solely because it sees that it has a SE move. Additionally, if the AI sees that multiple Pokemon have a super effective move, the AI will switch in the Pokemon that loses to your primary type. For example, if a charizard and a swampert both have brick break, and the cacturne is the Pokemon on your side, the AI will send in swampert because grass is SE on water and ground and resistant on fire and flying. Also, the AI has a chance to switch mid battle if you use dig or fly, and the AI has a switch that resists or is immune. This can also happen rarely in other times that I don't remember right now.

[@JackiW]

"It's bad." *Lance: opens door* You take that back.

[@jeffwhite1334]

Now I want to know about gen 4-9